HIGH-TECH HOTEL

Eve Mitchell, SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, April 15, 1997

1997-04-15 04:00:00 PDT SAN JOSE; SILICON VALLEY -- SAN JOSE - With more and more people using computers and cruising the Internet, the latest trend in the hotel industry is to offer guests high-tech rooms with a view - the digital kind.

And in this city that prides itself on being the hard-working capital of Silicon Valley, it should come as no surprise that more than 100 rooms of the San Jose Airport Hyatt are now equipped with personal computers with high-speed Internet access and a printer-fax-copier.

By the end of April, 256 of the hotel's 474 rooms are expected to be wired, with the rest finished by the end of the year.

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The setup includes e-mail capability and access to the Web, giving travelers information about news, weather, rental cars, local restaurants and attractions. Microsoft Office applications are also available.

"San Jose is a city where people come to work," said Manou Mobedshahi, the hotel's owner. "We designed the hotel around that. . . . They need offices in their rooms. The market is there and demands it and makes sense. People want it," he said.

The digital extras at the Airport Hyatt cost an additional $5 per day along with a 10 cents-per-minute Internet connection fee.

Several hotels in the United States have installed computers and Internet access - but primarily in common areas such as lobbies and conference rooms, said Marni Dacy, manager of media relations for the American Hotel & Motel Association, an industry trade group representing about 10,000 properties. A few offer computers in some rooms.

"It definitely is a growing trend," said Dacy. "This is the age of service and technology. . . . If consumers want it, then the hotels will provide it."

"We think it's very appropriate to have the best, the brightest, the state-of-the-art Web sites and access to the Internet," in hotel rooms, said Marian Holt McLain, president and CEO of the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We really need to be in the forefront of what our local companies are developing."

Mobedshahi, who purchased the Airport Hyatt last year through a franchise agreement, envisions a day when computers and Internet access are as much a part of the hotel room as telephones and color TVs - and not just for business travelers.

"When we travel for leisure, we need to have information," said Mobedshahi. People who are on vacation also might want to check in with the office or their friends and relatives back home via e-mail and surf the Internet looking for places to go, he said.

That's why Mobedshahi is also installing computers with Internet access and printer-fax-copier machines in every room of his two other hotels - the Hyatt St. Claire in downtown San Jose near the convention center and the luxury 14-room Sherman House in San Francisco's Pacific Heights.

The Sherman House will have computers in every room before the end of April, he said. About two dozen rooms in the 170-room St. Claire, which draws a mix of business clients and tourists, are now equipped with computers. Most of its other rooms will end up getting equipped with Internet capability through the TVs.

Mobedshahi's investment in high-tech: just under $2 million.

The Internet access for Mobedshahi's hotels is being carried by 4th Communications Network, a 5-year-old, privately held San Jose-based company that also provides interactive video services for the hotel industry.

The company, which has about 50 employees, has signed contracts to provide Internet access via television monitors or computers for some 50,000 hotel rooms among 150 or so hotel properties worldwide by year's end, said Scott Harmon, co-founder of the company and senior vice president for marketing and business development.

Last November, 4th Communications Network began providing in-room Internet-on-TV service for the 500-room Grosvenor House in London, making it the first hotel in the world to offer the service, said Harmon.

How a hotel is wired for in-room Internet service will depend on the clientele that it serves, said Harmon. Those that serve business travelers will opt for the personal computers, while hotels that have more of a tourist trade will go for the television monitors, he said.

Given that more and more people are using the Internet in their homes and offices, providing it in hotel rooms is just a logical extension of meeting consumer demand, Harmon said.

"I think people are going to demand this. This is hot, this is big," he said.&lt;